The Reindeer Keeper

(PLEASE NOTE: I have not been able to upload photos onto my Blog Posts so I have not blogged in a while. But I finally decided to go for it without photos until the time I figure out the problem. If you would like to see the photo that I intended to add with this post, both are on my Facebook page: The Reindeer Keeper). The Post Begins Here: When my older brother was a toddler, he nicknamed our grandmother Giddy. That nickname stayed with her over the years. Giddy worked from the minute she got up to the minute she went to bed. When going downstairs in the morning, she would be wearing one of her house dresses. Functional, with pockets, wearing such a loose-fitting dress made it easier for her to move about the old farmhouse as she cooked, mended, sewed, knitted, crocheted, braided rugs, did the wash, hung it out on the line to dry, did the ironing, baked bread, made donuts and cookies and tarts, prepared meals, cleaned-up, tended to six daughters, helped her husband in the...

 Growing up when the snow started falling and the wind howled it became time for mittens and boots; skates, sleds, and toboggans as well as homemade soups and breads, casseroles and a favorite my grandmother used to make-Rice Croquettes.  I'm sure any of us grandchildren who sat around her kitchen table enjoying those rice croquettes never understood what a croquette was but it didn't matter. We were going by the taste, the warmth and the fun we had sitting around that table in the wintertime. Sometimes after skating down at the creek, we'd stop at our grandmother's and if she was baking cookies or making rice croquettes she'd sit us down to enjoy whatever it was she was making. Her molasses cookies were so delicious. One was a handful. I never realized until years later that rice croquettes are quite simple to make. There are only four ingredients. After mixing the ingredients together, you roll out the croquettes in flour and cook them in deep fat until browned. T...

She never referenced a cook book. I never saw a measuring cup sitting on the counter; no fancy utensils or designer cookware. Despite the lack of what all the celebrity chefs saturating television these days use, my grandmother's plain bowls and wooden spoons were what she used when baking in her worn woodstove-the focal point in that kitchen of the old farmhouse. From her ability to judge a pinch of this and a dash of that to realizing by aroma that whatever she was baking was baked to perfection, my grandmother brought forth memories wrapped in pot holders for generations to come. My favorite memory coming out of that stove were her molasses cookies; melt-in-your-mouth molasses cookies so big that it took putting your hands together to hold just one-when you were a little child in your grandmother's kitchen.